New Jersey Supports Risky Wind Turbines, Ignores Nuclear Power Benefits

New Jersey Wind Farms Orsted Nuclear

Will New Jersey consider supporting all forms of clean, efficient and safe power…like nuclear? Or will the Garden State bet big with taxpayer dollars on the still risky solar and wind power solutions?

This non-partisan issue is covered in a recent New York Times editorial titled: Nuclear Power Can Save the World

To be sure, most want to wean off dirty fossil fuels like coal and oil. No debate there. But one thing for sure, it can’t and won’t happen over night.

Did ya know? The US only has experience with 2 small, offshore wind farms. One off of Rhode Island, the other here in Atlantic City….for a grand total of 10 actual wind turbines.

Why is NJ betting the house on highly risky wind farm industry? Why is Press of Atlantic City only publishing pro-wind press releases from ORSTED WIND and Stockton University?

NJ Governor Phil Murphy, Stockton University and wind companies like ORSTED are pushing thru a costly WIND FARM project off the Jersey coast. Over 500+ wind turbines could soon be constructed and installed, funded by tax incentives and higher electricity bills.

Why the rush? A recent article in the New York Times shows that wind power is far from ready for prime time. A costly sham?

Much like NJ Gov Christie wasted taxpayer funds on a one-size-fits-all dune system, now it’s Gov. Murphy’s turn to spend gobs of taxpayer cash on a money pit. A 500+ wind turbine farm along the shore.

From The New York Times. Nuclear Power Can Save the World

Expanding the technology is the fastest way to slash greenhouse gas emissions and decarbonize the economy. By Joshua S. Goldstein, Staffan A. Qvist and Steven Pinker.

Some NYT excerpts:

Wind and solar power are becoming cheaper, but they are not available around the clock, rain or shine, and batteries that could power entire cities for days or weeks show no sign of materializing any time soon. Today, renewables work only with fossil-fuel backup.

Germany, which went all-in for renewables, has seen little reduction in carbon emissions, and, according to our calculations, at Germany’s rate of adding clean energy relative to gross domestic product, it would take the world more than a century to decarbonize, even if the country wasn’t also retiring nuclear plants early.

France and Sweden decarbonized their grids decades ago and now emit less than a tenth of the world average of carbon dioxide per kilowatt-hour. They remain among the world’s most pleasant places to live and enjoy much cheaper electricity than Germany to boot.

They did this with nuclear power. And they did it fast, taking advantage of nuclear power’s intense concentration of energy per pound of fuel. France replaced almost all of its fossil-fueled electricity with nuclear power nationwide in just 15 years; Sweden, in about 20 years.

So why don’t the United States and other countries expand their nuclear capacity? The reasons are economics and fear.

NYT Editorial

New nuclear power plants are hugely expensive to build in the United States today. This is why so few are being built. But they don’t need to be so costly. The key to recovering our lost ability to build affordable nuclear plants is standardization and repetition.

The reality is that nuclear power is the safest form of energy humanity has ever used.

Mining accidents, hydroelectric dam failures, natural gas explosions and oil train crashes all kill people, sometimes in large numbers, and smoke from coal-burning kills them in enormous numbers, more than half a million per year.

By contrast, in 60 years of nuclear power, only three accidents have raised public alarm: Three Mile Island in 1979, which killed no one; Fukushima in 2011, which killed no one (many deaths resulted from the tsunami and some from a panicked evacuation near the plant); and Chernobyl in 1986, the result of extraordinary Soviet bungling, which killed 31 in the accident and perhaps several thousand from cancer, around the same number killed by coal emissions every day.

Nuclear power plants cannot explode like nuclear bombs, and they have not contributed to weapons proliferation, thanks to robust international controls: 24 countries have nuclear power but not weapons, while Israel and North Korea have nuclear weapons but not power.

Nuclear waste is compact — America’s total from 60 years would fit in a Walmart — and is safely stored in concrete casks and pools, becoming less radioactive over time.

Former Pa. Governor, Ed Rendell: I wish I’d made different choices about nuclear power in Pa.

From Philly.com: Pennsylvania’s nuclear power plants generate 93 percent of our state’s carbon-free energy and 13 times more electricity than wind, solar, and hydropower combined. In fact, losing the Beaver Valley and Three Mile Island plants alone will negate five times the emission benefits of all the solar and wind power projects installed in Pennsylvania to date.

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